Microsoft has a difficult challenge ahead of them in convincing people that they need Windows Home Server. After all, having another computer in the house—especially one that doesn't have a screen, a keyboard, or a mouse—isn't something people are shoving each other in the face for. But when families take a good long look at what WHS can do, like automated, centralized daily backups, simplified remote access, storage expansion and network file sharing, they may just change their minds. We got our hands on a Norco DS-520 Home Server, one of the first pre-made boxes available, and definitely loved what we saw.
Before the software, here's the hardware we used to explore WinHoServer. Norco's DS 520 has a 1GHz Celeron M processor, up to 1GB RAM, eight SATA II channels, 3 eSATA ports, four USB 2.0 ports, two Gigabit Ethernet ports and a total capacity of 8TB when using 1TB drives. It's got an MSRP of $649, which may seem high for a headless machine, but it's not quite like a standard Windows machine you've used. True, you can make a Windows XP or Vista machine into a NAS that backs up and has RAID and allows remote access, you need deep networking and computer experience to do so. WinHoSo is designed for the average family with more than one computer. And you pay for both the convenience and the upgrade ability.
View: Full Article @ Gizmodo
Before the software, here's the hardware we used to explore WinHoServer. Norco's DS 520 has a 1GHz Celeron M processor, up to 1GB RAM, eight SATA II channels, 3 eSATA ports, four USB 2.0 ports, two Gigabit Ethernet ports and a total capacity of 8TB when using 1TB drives. It's got an MSRP of $649, which may seem high for a headless machine, but it's not quite like a standard Windows machine you've used. True, you can make a Windows XP or Vista machine into a NAS that backs up and has RAID and allows remote access, you need deep networking and computer experience to do so. WinHoSo is designed for the average family with more than one computer. And you pay for both the convenience and the upgrade ability.
View: Full Article @ Gizmodo
so, I can hide it in a closet or something... I was planning on adding this to my home network
as soon as HP released their version, but I might just get this one. I'll just wait a few weeks
and see whats available ...
so, I can hide it in a closet or something... I was planning on adding this to my home network
as soon as HP released their version, but I might just get this one. I'll just wait a few weeks
and see whats available ...
Last I heard, wireless was not an option for backups.
so, I can hide it in a closet or something... I was planning on adding this to my home network
as soon as HP released their version, but I might just get this one. I'll just wait a few weeks
and see whats available ...
Last I heard, wireless was not an option for backups.
wireless works just fine.... My laptops back themselves up and they're always wireless.... it works just fine.
so, I can hide it in a closet or something... I was planning on adding this to my home network
as soon as HP released their version, but I might just get this one. I'll just wait a few weeks
and see whats available ...
Last I heard, wireless was not an option for backups.
wireless works just fine.... My laptops back themselves up and they're always wireless.... it works just fine.
You can start the server, backup the PCs and then shut the server off again. OR you can leave the server on to share media and make backups from the other home PCs which don't have to stay on 24/7 unless you have them actually doing something.
The main idea of WHS is to share media with all the PCs, media extenders/360s and even over the internet for when you're away from home. Plus it makes backups if you want it to. To do that most people would leave it on all the time, but you don't HAVE to.
You can start the server, backup the PCs and then shut the server off again. OR you can leave the server on to share media and make backups from the other home PCs which don't have to stay on 24/7 unless you have them actually doing something.
The main idea of WHS is to share media with all the PCs, media extenders/360s and even over the internet for when you're away from home. Plus it makes backups if you want it to. To do that most people would leave it on all the time, but you don't HAVE to.
In order to have a backup scheduled for every night the computer has to be on in order to do it. All my pc's are off during the night.
Also vista makes backing up things automatically to a external harddrive just as easy. I just dont see spending $500 + dollars for basically a new computer when I can spend $100 or less on an external harddrive that can be used to backup all my pcs.
You can start the server, backup the PCs and then shut the server off again. OR you can leave the server on to share media and make backups from the other home PCs which don't have to stay on 24/7 unless you have them actually doing something.
The main idea of WHS is to share media with all the PCs, media extenders/360s and even over the internet for when you're away from home. Plus it makes backups if you want it to. To do that most people would leave it on all the time, but you don't HAVE to.
In order to have a backup scheduled for every night the computer has to be on in order to do it. All my pc's are off during the night.
Also vista makes backing up things automatically to a external harddrive just as easy. I just dont see spending $500 + dollars for basically a new computer when I can spend $100 or less on an external harddrive that can be used to backup all my pcs.
so why not just change the backup time to a time that computers are on? and why do a backup every single night? My moms laptop hasn't been turned on in 10 days, so no backup in 10 days....it saves space on the server for something that doesn't change very often..
You can start the server, backup the PCs and then shut the server off again. OR you can leave the server on to share media and make backups from the other home PCs which don't have to stay on 24/7 unless you have them actually doing something.
The main idea of WHS is to share media with all the PCs, media extenders/360s and even over the internet for when you're away from home. Plus it makes backups if you want it to. To do that most people would leave it on all the time, but you don't HAVE to.
In order to have a backup scheduled for every night the computer has to be on in order to do it. All my pc's are off during the night.
Also vista makes backing up things automatically to a external harddrive just as easy. I just dont see spending $500 + dollars for basically a new computer when I can spend $100 or less on an external harddrive that can be used to backup all my pcs.
so why not just change the backup time to a time that computers are on? and why do a backup every single night? My moms laptop hasn't been turned on in 10 days, so no backup in 10 days....it saves space on the server for something that doesn't change very often..
You can start the server, backup the PCs and then shut the server off again. OR you can leave the server on to share media and make backups from the other home PCs which don't have to stay on 24/7 unless you have them actually doing something.
The main idea of WHS is to share media with all the PCs, media extenders/360s and even over the internet for when you're away from home. Plus it makes backups if you want it to. To do that most people would leave it on all the time, but you don't HAVE to.
In order to have a backup scheduled for every night the computer has to be on in order to do it. All my pc's are off during the night.
Also vista makes backing up things automatically to a external harddrive just as easy. I just dont see spending $500 + dollars for basically a new computer when I can spend $100 or less on an external harddrive that can be used to backup all my pcs.
Then you don't have much data and a server isn't for you.
Like I said in my other post, I don't store any data on my main computer. It has a single 150gb raptor. I install programs and such to it but all data such as music, photos, videos, etc. are stored on the server. And WHS is an excellent choice because it protects my data against hard drive failure. The system I built for it can hold 12 internal hard drives and I am well on my way to filling them all up.
I also love how it will do a complete backup of my systems daily. So if any of my computers hard drives fail or become corrupt I can restore the entire thing to the last point of the backup in about 20 minutes. I don't have to break out the OS discs, reinstall apps or configure.
You can start the server, backup the PCs and then shut the server off again. OR you can leave the server on to share media and make backups from the other home PCs which don't have to stay on 24/7 unless you have them actually doing something.
The main idea of WHS is to share media with all the PCs, media extenders/360s and even over the internet for when you're away from home. Plus it makes backups if you want it to. To do that most people would leave it on all the time, but you don't HAVE to.
In order to have a backup scheduled for every night the computer has to be on in order to do it. All my pc's are off during the night.
Also vista makes backing up things automatically to a external harddrive just as easy. I just dont see spending $500 + dollars for basically a new computer when I can spend $100 or less on an external harddrive that can be used to backup all my pcs.
Then you don't have much data and a server isn't for you.
Like I said in my other post, I don't store any data on my main computer. It has a single 150gb raptor. I install programs and such to it but all data such as music, photos, videos, etc. are stored on the server. And WHS is an excellent choice because it protects my data against hard drive failure. The system I built for it can hold 12 internal hard drives and I am well on my way to filling them all up.
I also love how it will do a complete backup of my systems daily. So if any of my computers hard drives fail or become corrupt I can restore the entire thing to the last point of the backup in about 20 minutes. I don't have to break out the OS discs, reinstall apps or configure.
If all your data is just on the server won't it just take the servers HDD to die to kill your backup? From that description it sounds like only your programs themselves are protected from a HDD failure as thats the only data you have 2 copies of.
Thats unless the server duplicates all that data on the server twice in some manner to prevent such issues.
I don't keep that data on my desktop and just back it up to the server. There is simply too much data. I have terabytes of data. So I keep everything stored and backed up on the server. It's also nice not to have to worry about what data goes on what drive as all drives are added to a single storage pool. Very nice.
And I have used the remote feature to log into my server from work and download files that I need from it. Also allows you to remote desktop in to any computer on your home network. Very handy.
Last edited by archer75 on 03 Nov 2007 - 13:25
Besides...windows Vista has shadow copy as a decent backup solution and can be used as a media player device. Put it in raid and you have a backup and media sharring device...just that the backups are local to the one machine. So if you want, while Vista won't replace this product you can perform a fair amount of the functionality if you want with Vista out of the box.
I still think the servers a good idea.
You should check out other linux based platforms that the same functionality as windows home server, and are very easy to setup, configure and use - much easier to setup in fact than windows home server. LaCie has a 1/2 TB drive with the HipServ platform pre-installed available now for $200... thats $200 for software and hardware all in. Low power, low sound, on all the time and the HipServ platform comes pre-installed - its a full Linux RedHat ES4 distribution so you are running a real server in your home, but the Linux portions are completely hidden from the end user with an easy to use interface. I've tried HipServ and its really easy for even my wife to use for backup/restore of all computers in the home (Win XP, Vista, and Mac, remote access to content, serving media up to DLNA and Windows Connect media servers (playstation3, xbox360, roku). I've got one in addition to windows home server, and the LaCie drive with HipServ works really well. If it sounds interesting you can read more here: http://www.lacie.com/us/products/product.htm?pid=10994 and http://www.axentra.com/hipserv.htm.
Last edited by dev77 on 04 Nov 2007 - 15:49
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